Trees
by UnderTheJackPine
Summary: Seven drabbles comparing each of the seven heroes to a North American tree species.


Hey Guys,

So this is a bunch of drabbles comparing each of the seven COTT heroes with a species of North American tree. I wrote it while I was camping since I didn't have my computer to work on my other fic. I hope you enjoy and I hope you learn something about the trees you may see in your own back yard, depending on where in the world you're from, trees are cooler than you realize.

* * *

Fire, Atlanta had always felt she had a fire burning deep within, smoldering with passion. She could feel it blaze wild with her emotions. Never did she feel the need to quell the flames; she would let them lick as high as they wanted. Some seem to have the inclination that fire is bad, dangerous, uncontrollable, but Atlanta was never so narrow sighted. Fire brought life. Fire could be the key to survival, the only inferno hot enough to split the cone of the jack pine and free their seeds. Atlanta was like the Jack pine, life meant having fire.

* * *

The redwood was the largest tree in all of North America, the world. It was a keystone species, all the living things in the costal forest depended on them. Without their presence their ecosystem could not persist, so many things depended on the redwood. Jay's team depended on him. They needed him to keep the integrity of the team like the shore of the Pacific coast needed the redwoods to keep the integrity of its forest. He would stand tall and strong. He had a presence that was always noted, instilled inspiration in others. A noble tree, a noble man.

* * *

Neil was an individual. There was no one else like him on the planet, anywhere. He was like an apple tree; no two apple trees grew the same apple. From each seed came a complete new individual with a flavor nothing like before. They refused to become the same, but they were suppressed. Only the select few were cloned for industry, the generic. There are thousands of varieties of apple. Most are gone forever, but the tail of their distinct and superior taste remains. Neil would be one of those apples, remembered for his flair long after he was gone.

* * *

Thick, that's what people saw when they looked at Herry, in every sense of the word. He was broad, coming along with that image was the conclusion he was senseless. Sure he may be below average in intelligence, but there was more than one way to measure. Oak was a tree with a thick outside. Its bark became so because of fire, a regular disturbance the species faced. Becoming strong on the outside was what allowed the tree to protect its inside. It was only smart to become so thick, it meant he could protect what was important to him.

* * *

They whispered when the wind blew, they danced in the slightest of breezes. The trembling aspen seemed so whimsical, so free. Theresa always felt her father had given her a leash the length of a mile to do how she pleased. The leaves on the aspen would know what that was like. The petiole, the stock that attaches the leaf to the tree, was long and flexible on aspens, what allowed the leaves to dance so freely in the wind like no other. Theresa yearned for the time before Cronus when she would dance so freely, tremble like the aspen.

* * *

Lacrosse, hockey, rugby, all good sports, but they weren't extreme. Rock climbing; now that was a sport for Archie, proving no place is unreachable. Just what the cedar thought, growing out of the side of a cliff. Why would anyone or anything want to conquest a place so harsh? The cedar had the answer. In cliffs a cedar could grow for 1000 years, they become that old nowhere else. It was wondrous to get to a place on skill alone and be taken by the majesty of the land. Archie and the cedar understood the breathtaking extremes, isolated and undisturbed.

* * *

A wolf in sheep's clothing is what they had called him. Underneath Odie's frail physique was a strategic mastermind. He was adaptable, durable. He would take on whatever challenge came his way. Push himself where others would never go. The tamarack went were other trees would never grow, all the way to the tree line in the arctic. Of all the evergreens they were the only ones to lose their needles. Come winter, with their naked branches exposed, they would appear frail in the cold cut of polar winds, but Odie could see their adaptation only made them more durable.


End file.
